Billy Ray Cobb

Billy Ray Cobb (1958-1984) was a Madison County, Mississippi resident who, alongside Pete Willard, abducted, beat, and raped the 10-year-old Tonya Hailey in 1984. The two of them were gunned down by the girl's father, Carl Lee Hailey, in an act of vigilantism.

Biography
Billy Ray Cobb was born in Canton, Mississippi in 1958, growing up in a rural white family. Cobb was the son of Cora Mae Cobb and the younger brother of Freddie Lee Cobb. He became a white supremacist, and he spent much of his time committing hateful acts against the African-American community alongside his best friend, Pete Willard. In 1984, the two of them drunkenly drove around in their pickup truck, throwing beer bottles at black families, and they later came across the ten-year-old Tonya Hailey walking home from the local store with bags of groceries. Cobb threw a beer bottle at Tonya's head, and the two men proceeded to rape her in the back of their truck before attempting to lynch her. They failed, and they were later arrested by Sheriff Ozzie Walls. After it became likely that the two men would be acquitted by an all-white jury, the girl's father Carl Lee Hailey entered the courthouse with an M16 and opened fire on Willard and Cobb as they were escorted up the courthouse steps by policeman Dwayne Looney. Willard and Cobb were killed, while Looney was wounded by a ricocheting bullet. The murders of Cobb and Willard led to Hailey being put on trial, and later acquitted, for their murders.